The Doodler
The Doodler also referred to as '''The Black Doodler '''is an unidentified serial killer who was active in San Francisco's Castro District from January 1974 to September 1975. The nickname was given due to the perpetrator's habit of sketching his victims prior to their sexual encounters and murders by stabbing. Case History It is believed that the Doodler killed up to fourteen people. A consistent method used in several of the killings was stabbing the victims in the front and back of their bodies. Police theorized that the victims had all died after meeting with the suspect near the locations where their bodies were recovered. Police initially believed there could have been as many as three different perpetrators during early stages of the investigation. In the absence of an arrest, there were rumours. The late Charles Lee Morris, owner and publisher of the Sentinel, told the Chronicle about a Los Angeles man who encountered the Doodler. He was about to go to bed with a young black man resembling the composite sketch, but changed his mind when a knife fell out of the man’s coat. After the Chronicle’s story ran, the SFPD, besieged with tips, questioned a number of suspects. One man, who resembled the composite sketch, was taken into custody after he entered a Tenderloin bar and offered to draw the patrons. Along with a book of sketches, he’d been carrying a butcher knife. (He was booked for carrying a concealed weapon and after he attacked homicide inspectors during an interrogation, charged with aggravated assault.) Police questioned another young man as a murder suspect in the case but could not proceed with criminal charges because the three surviving victims did not want to "out" themselves by testifying against him in court. Among the stabbing survivors were a "well-known entertainer" and a diplomat. The suspect cooperated with police during his interview but he never admitted guilt for the murders and attacks. Officers stated that they strongly believed that the man in question was responsible for the crimes, although he was never tried or convicted because of the survivors' refusals to appear in court. To date, the suspect has never been publicly named or apprehended; very little information is available about the crimes. In fact, there were dozens of suspects, and at least one of them looked good for the murders. In July 1977, an SFPD homicide investigator said a suspect had for the last year been questioned and had “talked freely” with police but declined to confess to the killings. The police said they were “fairly certain’ that the suspect is involved in the slayings, but court testimony of the survivors would be needed to identify him.” A week later, the Sentinel reported that the department knew, thanks to an anonymous tip, the license plate number of the suspect’s car and had even “spoken to the psychiatrist who treated the man.” (The Sentinel also gleefully revealed that, according to the SFPD, the killer was heterosexual. Headline: “Straight sought in mass gay slayings.”) The psychiatrist told investigators that the suspect admitted during one session that he had committed the brutal slayings. 2018-2019 Updates The Doodler killings gained renewed attention in May 2018 with an update from the SFPD that DNA evidence will be used in a similar manner to how the Golden State Killer was identified to try and find the Doodler. Evidence will be looked at again and old suspects are being re-interviewed, age progression sketches of what the suspect may look like at the ages of 63-69 were also released. Modus Operandi The Doodler targeted gay men who he presumably met at bars and restaurants that were popular with gay men, and according to witnesses, he would draw sketches of men before he had sex with, assaulted and killed them through stabbing them through the front and backs of their bodies. Profile Sometimes referred to as the Black Doodler, he was described at the time as African-American, between 19 and 24 years old, slender but well built, a little shy of 6 feet, and frequently wore "a Navy-type watch cap." The Doodler was described as an artist who would sketch strangers he met in local bars and use the drawings to strike up conversations with the men. He’d leave with his sketch subject from the bar, have sex with them, and later stab the man to death. Police believe that he committed the murders after feeling shame over his homosexual experiences. Police believed the killer had a quiet, serious personality, with an upper middle class education and above average intelligence. It is quite possible that he was an art student; he’d informed a witness he was “studying commercial art.” (Alas, one cannot judge the quality of the Doodler’s work — his sketches were never shown in the press.) The police also believed the suspect had a history of “mental difficulties involving sex.” Indeed, reported one paper, he had “sexual identification problems” and was undergoing psychiatric care on “an out-patient basis.” According to the Chronicle, he told each victim, “All you guys are alike,” by which he meant gay. Suspect The prime suspect, as stated above has never been publicly named or identified but a few pieces of information have been released. The prime suspect was reportedly en ex-mental patient who was released from an institution in 1972. He was apprehended when he was reported by a bartender for sketching men in his bar after he had heard about the Doodler's M.O. and thus promptly called the police. The suspect was in his late teens/early twenties and is believed to have left San Francisco after his release. In January 1976, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story about the Doodler and two days later a suspect was arrested. According to The Sentinel, he was detained "outside a Tenderloin bar last Friday night after a bar patron called to report that a man fitting the composite drawing furnished by the SFPD had entered the bar and was offering to draw sketches of patrons." According to the paper, "The man was carrying a butcher knife and a book of sketches when the police nabbed him." Police questioned the man repeatedly, The Sentinel reported at the time. The paper quoted an unnamed police source as saying the suspect had confessed the killings to a psychiatrist. "He's having difficulty with his sexuality," Gilford told The Chronicle at the time. "He's probably ashamed of what he's doing. Homosexuality has never been accepted in the black community. ... The guilt he is experiencing causes him to want to erase the acts he's committed." Known Victims *Note: There are officially 14 victims attributed to the Doodler serial killings but only five have ever been named. They are as follows: **1974 ***January 24: Gerald Cavanaugh ***June 25: Joseph "Jae" Stevens ***July 7: Klaus Christmann ***May 12: Frederick Capin **September 4, 1975: Harald Gullberg *Note: The Doodler also attempted to murder three other men. On Criminal Minds *Season Three **"In Heat" - While the Doodler has yet to be directly mentioned or referenced on the show, he (or the unnamed Doodler suspect anyway) appears to have been an inspiration for the episode's unsub, Steven Fitzgerald - Both are (possibly in the Doodler's case) homosexual serial killers who were abused by their fathers because of their homosexuality (as the police suspected the Doodler was), which presumably led to feelings of immense self-hatred, and killed men who they caught feelings for because of their shamed homosexuality. Category:Real People Category:Real World Criminals Category:Real Life Killers Category:Unsolved Cases Category:Real Serial Killers Category:Unreferenced Criminals